


After Sundown

by TsarinaTorment



Series: Fluffember [4]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Alan's going to look after Scott no matter what Scott says, Cold, Family, Fluff, Fluffember 2020, Gen, Holding Hands, More 'melancholy fluff', fluffember
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Scott didn’t let Alan help with the big things, but he didn’t say no to the small things.
Relationships: Alan Tracy & Scott Tracy
Series: Fluffember [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996258
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	After Sundown

**Author's Note:**

> Four for four! (ish, we’ll ignore that it’s technically 2am on the 5th here right now). #fluffember day four: ‘jacket’, and once again making it not angsty was a challenge so we’re back in my ‘melancholy fluff’ mode.

Tracy Island was always warm, but when the sun went down, the darkness of night had a way of leeching heat regardless. Alan knew that, especially in the depths of winter when it never got cold enough for snow, but _did_ still get cold enough that a single t-shirt wasn’t enough to keep warm. All his brothers knew that; even Gordon begrudgingly left the pool alone after sundown during winter months, at the insistence of Grandma, Scott and Virgil. Alan had even heard John reminding him once or twice.

His brothers knew that, but in true older brother fashion, they sometimes decided that the rules didn’t apply to them. Gordon was enough younger brother rather than older that he couldn’t get away with going out after dark in just his Hawaiian shirts, and Virgil liked his thick plaid even in the height of summer, while John was inevitably off planet. Scott, though. The epitome of ‘do as I say not as I do’, Alan’s biggest brother sometimes just vanished and came back hours later pretending he wasn’t shivering and grasping for the hot chocolate Virgil immediately placed on the counter for him.

Virgil wasn’t there this time, off playing glorified taxi for Thunderbird Four as Gordon headed out to tackle a sinking ship somewhere off the coast of Africa. Kayo was off doing who-knew-what who-knew-where in her usual Kayo way, leaving Alan alone with a tutting Grandma as the sun dipped below the horizon and Scott showed no signs of reappearing from wherever he’d gone this time.

A hot chocolate sat on the counter, a joint effort between him and Grandma. Part of Alan wondered if Scott had a sixth sense for that and was staying out just to avoid being forced to drink it. Unlikely, but not impossible. Alan’s brothers had shown stranger abilities (he still hadn’t figured out how Scott and Virgil both managed to have eyes in the back of their head. John swore up and down it wasn’t him telling them whenever he and Gordon did something, and despite the odds Alan believed him).

“Where _is_ that brother of yours?” Grandma asked, irritation and worry present in equal measures. Alan frowned out at the darkness.

“Do you want me to go find him?” he asked, anticipating the answer to be _no_ but asking anyway because Scott _had_ been gone a long time and he was worried, too.

But she didn’t say no immediately, and he glanced sideways at her in surprise. “…Give him another ten minutes,” she eventually conceded. “Then we’ll get John to track his comm and you can go drag your irresponsible brother back inside.”

“F.A.B.” Ten minutes was a long time to just _wait_ , so Alan made himself busy. Trusting Grandma to tell him if Scott came back – or at least scold him loudly enough that he’d hear – he retreated to his room to pull on his heavy-duty boots and hunt down Grandma-approved after-dark clothes.

A thick jacket, bordering on overwhelmingly so in the warmth of the villa itself, a fully-charged comm unit, a flashlight and an emergency first aid kit were all gathered and shrugged on his person before he left his room again, heading back to wait out the rest of the ten minutes with Grandma.

Passing Scott’s room, he paused. Had Scott..? No. He pushed the door open quietly, peering through the doorway. It was empty – of course it was; Scott was out – and he tiptoed in, feeling like he didn’t belong there. That wasn’t true of course; Scott had an open door for all of them at any point, as much as they tried to respect his space, but it wasn’t the same when he knew Scott wasn’t in there. The room, decked out in varying shades of blue and decorated sparsely with images of jet planes, didn’t feel the same when it was empty.

Still on his tiptoes, Alan hurried through the room, making a beeline for his brother’s closet and picking out the biggest, warmest jacket he could find. It was huge, and a little heavy, emphasising the ‘big’ in big brother, and Alan clutched it to his chest as he beat a hasty retreat from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Grandma gave him an approving smile, although still tight with the knowledge that Scott hadn’t come back, when she saw it.

“He’s on the cliffs,” she told him, her voice just as tight. “John says he hasn’t moved in a while, but vital signs are stable.” Alan found himself wrapped in a hug. “Be careful out there. I’d go myself if my hip wasn’t playing up again.”

“Yes, Grandma,” he promised, returning the hug.

“Now go get your brother before I follow you in one of your fancy machines. And stay in touch!”

“Yes, Grandma.” He peeled away from her grip and started the trek to the cliffs.

Compared to some places on the island, they weren’t all that far, but they were out of sight of the house. It took Alan five minutes of carefully watching where he was putting his feet to reach them, and another ten seconds to locate the moonlit silhouette of his brother, sat down on a rock and staring at nothing.

As expected, he was just in his day clothes. Alan padded up behind him and draped the thick jacket he’d scrounged from his closet over his shoulders.

Scott jumped, jerking his head around to face him. Surprise coloured his features for a split second before he relaxed again, although he did nothing about the jacket.

“Why are you out here, Alan?” he asked. Alan rolled his eyes and nudged him insistently before crossing his arms and glaring down at his sitting brother.

“It’s after sundown,” he pointed out bluntly. “Grandma sent me.” Well, he’d volunteered, but Grandma hadn’t said _no_. “You’ve been out here for hours.”

Scott blinked, glancing around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time.

“I must have lost track of time,” he admitted. “Are Virgil and Gordon back yet?” Alan shook his head, reaching out and tugging insistently on the jacket draped over Scott’s shoulders until he begrudgingly pulled his arms through.

“What’s wrong, Scott?” he asked. “This isn’t like you.”

Scott’s face twisted into something Alan couldn’t name, but he didn’t think it was _happy_. “It’s nothing, Alan. Don’t worry about it.”

“ _Scott_ ,” he complained, unhappy at the brush off. Scott shrugged, but offered a thin smile.

“It’s really nothing,” he said. Alan doubted that very much, but knew Scott well enough to know he’d was the last person his brother wanted confide in, what with his overprotective smother henning tendencies.

“Then let’s get inside before Grandma comes chasing us down in a Pod,” he shrugged, trying for a bit of levity to hide his frustration that Scott wouldn’t open up about whatever had had him sitting on a rock staring at nothing for the last several hours. He’d sic John or Virgil on him later, if Grandma didn’t get there first. For now, he just offered Scott a hand up.

“Did she threaten that?” Scott asked with a sigh, but he did accept the help to his feet.

His hand was cold, and Alan made the executive decision not to let go, even when Scott tried to lightly tug it back.

“Yup,” he answered, popping the ‘p’ the way Gordon had taught him. “So let’s move.”

He didn’t mention the hot chocolate waiting for him when he got back in. Scott could find that one out the hard way.

He also didn’t comment when Scott stopped trying to reclaim his hand and instead returned the grip. Ice cold fingers tickled his palm; Alan just held them tighter.

Scott might not talk to him about things that were bothering him, but that didn’t stop him finding other ways to look after his big brother, even if it was just a jacket and a warm hand.

**Author's Note:**

> (For the curious: Scott was thinking about their parents, which he didn't want to offload onto Alan because he knows Alan doesn't remember their mother and gets upset about their father. Depending on future prompts I might even write his pov to this at some point.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> Tsari


End file.
